A newly discovered object is the most-distant body ever observed in the solar system — and the first object ever found orbiting at more than 100 times the distance from Earth to the sun.
The discovery team nicknamed the object "Farout," and its provisional designation from the International Astronomical Union is 2018 VG18. Preliminary research suggests it's a round, pinkish dwarf plan...

On Thursday morning, just after 8AM PT, the two pilots on board Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane ignited the vehicle’s rocket engine high above the Mojave Desert for a total of 60 seconds, soaring to an altitude of 82.7 kilometers. When the vehicle reached its maximum height, the Virgin Galactic team celebrated: they had finally reached space — a new record for the company....

Head for dark, clear skies tonight — overnight Dec. 13-14 — to see the shooting stars of the Geminid meteor shower overhead.
The shower is likely to be the best meteor shower of 2018, and it will be visible in both hemispheres — though the Northern Hemisphere will have an advantage. While the August Perseid meteor shower is more famous, experts are saying to get out...

Richard Branson says Virgin Galactic is on the verge of a major achievement: It will send astronauts into space by Christmas.
The billionaire entrepreneur told CNN Business' Rachel Crane this week he is "pretty confident" his space tourism venture can achieve its milestone by the end of the year.
"We have a brilliant group of astronauts who literally believe 100% in the project, an...

One of the oldest stars in the universe is quietly hiding out in the Milky Way some 2,000 light-years from Earth.
According to a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, the tiny, 13.5-billion-year-old red dwarf contains barely any heavy elements at all, suggesting it formed out of a nearly pristine cloud of material leftover from shortly after the Big Bang. Fur...

This annotated image of the Orion constellation shows the dim clouds of nebulous, glowing dust that sit in the field. The asterism Orion’s Belt (composed of the stars Altitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka) is visible near center.
The night sky’s most conspicuous harbinger of winter now rises in the east around 11 p.m. local daylight time.
The constellation Orion the H...